


Good Boy the Dog

by MoreHuman



Series: The Dog [4]
Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Dogs, Ficlet, Fluff and Humor, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:29:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22328617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoreHuman/pseuds/MoreHuman
Summary: Johnny does some obedience training.
Relationships: Stevie Budd & Johnny Rose
Series: The Dog [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1596469
Comments: 41
Kudos: 133





	Good Boy the Dog

The puppy is cute?

The puppy is impossible. Just one more family member Johnny can’t understand or make do anything. He feels great affection for him.

“Sit,” he says again. The puppy’s tail stops wagging side to side and starts wagging up and down, like a water pump. The puppy does not sit. Johnny gives him a treat. “Good boy.”

“Yeah, Mr. Rose?” Stevie marks her page and thunks her book down onto the check-in desk. “I think maybe you’re giving him the wrong idea of what ‘sit’ means.”

This time, in reaction to the word “sit,” the puppy jumps up onto the battered old motel couch, which is theoretically for guests. In that most guests sit on it only in theory.

“No. Off,” Johnny says. The puppy rolls over for a belly rub. Johnny rubs. “Good boy.”

Before they brought the dog home, David and Patrick decided that he would not be allowed on the furniture. Of course, they each put the other in charge of convincing the dog to agree to this plan, so now he just does whatever he wants. Classic communication breakdown. Johnny really worries, sometimes, about those two.

“Well, Stevie, I don’t see you trying to make him behave.”

“Oh, that’s because I don’t want to make him behave.” Stevie comes out from behind the desk and flops down onto the sofa next to the dog. He crawls into her lap and nudges his way under her hands. “Can’t risk my reputation as the Cool Aunt.”

Laps were another thing that were supposed to be off limits to the dog. Johnny once found a list of David’s objections to pet ownership in the motel trash, and items three through twenty-three were some variation of  _ Fur on my clothes _ . (Item seventeen was, in fact,  _ Fur on my faux fur _ .) David surrendered on this point, too, and now he keeps garment brushes stashed all over town. If Johnny’s not mistaken, there are three in this very room.

Stevie reaches down to dig her knuckles into the dog’s favorite spot just at the base of his tail. She has a name for this move that David hates. (It’s “butt noogies.”) The dog sits up and licks her face in gratitude.

Face licking hadn’t even made David’s list of objections, that’s how far it was from his mind. Now he refers to the dog’s tongue as “My morning alarm,” which is, in fact, alarming. At any time of day. Johnny has never quite been able grasp who his son is, and at this rate he never will.

“You know,” Stevie says, “if you really want him to listen to you, you should ask Mrs. Rose for some tips. She’s got this whole… spell cast over him.”

Johnny had done exactly that, two weeks ago.

_ “First you have to find a shared motivation, John. I’ll give you some Meisner exercises to practice together.” _

Meisner exercises, it turns out, are when two actors repeat the same phrase back and forth to one another. He and the dog couldn’t get the hang of it, so he tried asking again, last week.

_ “John, you must remember. Communication is only 55% body language, 38% tone of voice, and 0% what you say.” _

Johnny appreciated this attempt to translate her advice into numbers for him. But even if he could figure out the rest of her math, there’s no figuring out the tone of her voice. Or her body language. He’d consider buying a wig, if he thought the dog could be fooled.

“Moira does give great advice,” Johnny says to Stevie, and changes the subject as quickly as he can. “I’m thinking about buying the good boy here a gift.”

Johnny knows the dog has a name. He knows Alexis has given him a cute nickname, and Moira has given him an extended title and backstory, and David finds all of this unacceptable. Johnny only ever refers to the dog as “good boy” because “good boy” is safe. “Good boy” doesn’t take sides.

“Bribery is always a strategy I can get behind.” Stevie nods solemnly. “I wouldn’t get him any makeup though. He can borrow mine.”

“Yes, Stevie, ha-ha, very funny. No, I wasn’t going to get him any makeup.”

Johnny spends a long moment preparing to tell her what he does plan to get the dog. Because he definitely knows exactly what that is, yes, of course. It’s just that Stevie interrupts him before he can say it.

“Mr. Rose, would you like me to help you pick out a gift for David’s dog?”

“Oh, well, if you want to offer, Stevie, I wouldn’t say no. Certainly not.”

Johnny feels good about this decision already. Stevie won’t let him down.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Good Boy the Dog](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28239735) by [GoLBPodfics (GodOfLaundryBaskets)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GodOfLaundryBaskets/pseuds/GoLBPodfics)




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